XII
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Let us, if you please, go into the matter a little more deeply, and you will soon see that you have no cause to put further questions, once you reach the true origin of rivers. A river is, of course, formed by a supply of water that is always constant. If you ask me, therefore, how water is produced, I will ask in my turn how air or earth is produced. If there are four elements in nature, you are not entitled to ask where water, one of them, comes from; it is the fourth part of nature. Why, therefore, are you surprised that so great a portion of nature can furnish a perpetual supply of liquid from itself? Just as the atmosphere, which is likewise a fourth part of the universe, is the source of winds and breezes, so is water, of streams and rivers. If wind is atmosphere in motion, so is a river water in motion. I have given it strength enough in saying that it is one of the four elements. You must be aware that what has an element as its source can never run short.